


Cliffside

by orphan_account



Series: Seadweller AU [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Multi, Revolution, Seadweller AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-07 07:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4254162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave sees a glimpse of something strange during his walk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was mid June, the summer after freshman year, and Dave had gone down to the beach. His eldest brother was coming home from work soon, and would surely be there to torment him if Dave dared to show his face.

Thats how its always been in the Strider household, his brother seemed to get a kick out of leaving around horrible shit for him and Dirk to find, sneaking around just to whack them upside the head with a puppet, filling the ice tray with cherry bombs and the refrigerator with weapons. Dave thinks it might have been funny at some point, but nowadays the knives in the fridge are only there to torment his empty gut and the smallest clank of metal reminds him of all those times his brother forced him down the stairs by his sword, laughing in his face.

Its not funny anymore.

John offered to take him in for awhile when he's done visiting his internet pal Vriska, but that's not until Saturday, which is three days away.

And to be fair three days isn't a long time, but it can feel like a long time when all there is to eat is the snacks your brother manages to mooch off his boyfriend and every minute you spend at home only reminds you insufferable your brother seems.

He can't stand being at home much nowadays.

The only thing that makes his home alright is his twin brother Dirk.  
Dirk is only older then him by a little bit, but he still acts all big brotherly with him anyway. He's a lot better at sparring with Bro, always seems to help Dave out when he's in a pinch, even has a pretty steady boyfriend. That being said, Dirk can be a bit...intense, sometimes, he doesn't know how to handle his feelings well, which can often lead to disaster. Dave help him out there of course, not to say he's the best at expressing himself either, but he's certainly better then Dirk at least. The amount of close calls that came with Jake or Jane or Roxy or whoever is really astonding, Dave can't remember the last time he had a serious fight with John or Rose, and honestly he don't know how Dirk does this to himself.

"But he's your twin brother, and you love him." Dave thinks fondly to himself "not that we really say it though, but we both know it anyway."

Dave begins to kick some rocks into the water, releasing both his boredom and pent up frustration for his eldest bro. 

Something kicks up above the water only to shoot straight back down again, he must have hit it with some of the rocks and freaked it out, oops.

But whatever it was, it certainly was strange, he only saw its feet as it dove deeper into the water, but that's the weird part, it had /feet/.

He certainly wasn't an expert on marine life, that was more Harley's forte, but he doesn't remember ever hearing about something with human feet before.

Maybe it really was a person? No, thinking about it now, they're skin seemed almost grey. Granted, it was getting late so it wasn't too easy to see, but  
even if it was possible for a person to achieve such a color, there's no way they could stay underwater for that long.

Unless they had scuba gear? But he could see its shadow just a sliver beneath the surface, something like that would be pretty large wouldn't it? He would probably notice something even in this lighting.

He'll ask Jade about it later.

After another hour of exploring the beach, Dave started to head back home, if he was lucky he would get home late enough where Bro would be exhausted enough to spend the rest of the night in his bedroom.  
When he unlocked the door, there was Dirk, retrieving some crackers he stashed in the extra pairs of shoes on the rack.

The both of them were always finding ways to hide snacks and drinks.

"Sup bro." He greeted Dave with a half hearted smile. "Went to Johns house I'm guessing?" He ripped open some animal crackers and shoved about five down his face.

"No, he's at Vriskas, remember? I went down to the beach this time, I might go to Harleys tomorrow though." 

"Cool, cool." He replied with his mouth still full of crumbs, "I'm going on a trip to the boardwalk on Sunday with the gang, we'll be gone for a couple 'a days so you should come with us if you don't wanna be stuck at home with Bro."

"Its cool, I'll be at Johns by then anyways."

"Alright, whatever you say man. Let us know if you change your mind..." and he headed back into his room, stuffing more crackers down in the process.

Its not that he didn't like hanging with Dirk or his friends, they could be pretty fun sometimes, but John was his best friend and he promised to stay with him since school let out. He would probably have a lot more fun lounging around with John then he would going on some fancy trip with Dirks circle anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning Dave walked down to Jades house.

Jade had been Daves friend since elementary school; he met John thanks to her.

But that's a story for another time.

He walked up the porch of Jades mansion, and when he said mansion, he really meant /mansion/, the place was huge, big enough to keep Jades massive garden and her grandpas countless hobbies, rooms for both of them, plus Jake, and then spare rooms for Jane and John to stay in. Hell, she could give the Lalondes a run for their money.

It took much longer then a person with an average sized house for Jade to answer the door, but when she did, it was worth the wait, her eyes lit up at the sight of him and she led him him, momentarily leaning down to give Bec an affectionaite scratch between his ears.

"Come on in!" She said smiling "Grandpa rented Mockingjay, I've been waiting to watch it with you."

Both of them had been watching Hunger Games together since it first come out, it wasn't his favorite movie in the world, but Jade liked it a lot and it made her happy to watch it with her.

After the movie, Jade talked animately about what she thought of the movie, what she thought was going to happen next, how she planned to buy the books later that week because Rose said they were 'sooo much better and they cut out a lot of important details in the movies'. She also promised to let him borrow them when shes done, whichll be nice, something he can do while he's at the beach.

The beach.

Didn't he want to ask Jade about something on the beach?

"Hey Jade" he started "I saw something weird at the beach the other day.... I was wondering if you and your nifty marine enthusiasm could give me a hand."

"Hmmm probably! What'd it look like?"

"I dunno, pretty big, maybe a little smaller then a person? All I saw was its foot, which looked like a humans, but it wasn't hairy like an ape or anything, not that it would be one of those. And I don't think it could be human either, I'm pretty sure it was grey."

"Grey....?" Jade repeated hesitantly "No...I don't think I know anything about that Dave, maybe a really pale person was diving and the lighting was just off..."

"I don't think so Harley, it was like, underwater for a long time, and it seemed pretty close to the surface, so I would've noticed if it had scuba gear or something."

"Oh really?? I have no idea then, maybe my books just haven't gone over it yet. I dunno if its a good idea to go around that part of the beach anymore Dave, it could be dangerous." she gave him a small pat on the back smiling softly "be careful 'kay?"  
Both of them drop it after that.

Dave spends two full nights at Jades, the two of them go hiking and watch more movies, Dave helps her catch up on some gardening, and then he heads home to get ready for Johns.

Bro is away at work, Dirk is blasting his mixes from his room, and seemed to have taken liberty of cleaning up all those freaky puppets and stuffing them back in Bros room for Dave, since he knows how much they bother him.

Today is a nice day.

Dave packs an extra pair of jeans and a half dozen shirts into a backpack, tosses a handfull of DVDs and an extra playstation controller just in case John wants to play some games, and sits outside the gate of his apartment to wait for John.

Fifteen minutes later, John arrived at his doorstep. "Hi Dave!" He yelled rolling down the window "Its unlocked, come onn innn!" You let yourself in and rest your bag near your feet, John immediately starts on all the weird board games Vriska showed him while he was staying with her. It doesn't take long for them to arrive back to Johns place, its not like he lives far from Dave or anything, its just a bit of a distance to walk with a bag on your shoulders.

Johns house is small and warm, its two storied, but Johns dad has the larger bedroom and you've never been inside. The living room and kitchen are small without being without being cramped, half of his Dads study is converted into Janes room, which isn't as bad as it seems, since Jane uses the family computer the most and she doesn't mind if John comes in to play piano every now and then. (Johns been talking about moving it to the living room or his bedroom though.)

John leads Dave into his bedroom, the place is familiar, Johns walls are plastered with posters of Bad Movies and he's still using the Sburb calendar Jade gave him for Christmas, and the rabbit Dave gave him for his birthday a few years back is sitting by his pillow.

Its nice

"So I was thinking we could watch Failure to Launch, my dad said he'll order pizza a little later." John says suddenly, pushing a CD into his computer.

"Yeah sounds cool." Dave says simply and pull an old yoga ball next to his chair so he can watch.

5 hours, two bad movies, and a greasy cheese pizza later John has somehow fallen dead asleep in his computer chair and Dave can hear his snores echo through the room. It wasn't /that/ late, but he was feeling a bit sleepy and there was nothing to do if John was out for the count, so he dozes off on Johns bed for the night.

\--------------------------------------------  
Daves wakes up to Johns dad starting up his car to get to work, honestly, its surprising it didn't disturb John, the old car is really loud and takes a long time to start up, he supposes he's used to it.

But now he's awake and there's no way he's gonna fall asleep again while the suns out, plus John got up at some point in the night to share the bed and he's hogging all the covers, and Mr. Egbert keeps the house /really/ cold.

Maybe...maybe he could go down to the beach again. That place was just about as far from Johns place as it was from his, it would take awhile, but he doubted John would be waking up anytime soon.

He leaves a note anyways.

It takes ten minutes more then usual for him to get to that spot on the beach, the sun is high in the sky which makes the whole beach comfortingly warm, he pushes his sunglasses up to get the hair out of his face. He climbs up on a bunch of small boulders under the cliff of the beach, and then he sees him.  
Resting on his belly on some lower, flatter, rocks sits a boy who looks about Daves age. He has thick, black curly hair that looks quite damp, his swim trunks are fuchsia. He has a loose black t-shirt and a fuchsia cape with a collar that resembles a turtle neck, only the fabric is much looser and thinner. His ears are covered in gold cuffs and small thick hoops, and he has freckles all the way from his face down to his toes. He looks gaudy really, but that's not the weirdest part, his ears resemble fins, skin is clearly grey from top to bottom, and he has two rounded horns sticking up from his head, gleaming a spectrum of oranges and yellows.

Its then that the creature looks up at him, only to make unfamiliar gestures.  
"Hey there buddy." Dave says smirking at it, lazily resting his head in his hand. It seems to get more frustrated somehow, and repeats the same gestures from before.

A moment before something it clicks oh.....OH whatever it was, whoever THEY were, they were trying to communicate with him through sign langauge, not that he knew it or anything......

Actually he did know one thing, Dirk told him once,when they were bored and coming up with an extensive list of how to greet someone.

Y-O he spelled.

The initial response was a very loud groan and a slap to a forehead. But then he seemed to get an idea, and began to finger spell something.

Except..it was just those two letters he knew really, he had no idea how to read finger spelling.

He gave the creature a guilty shrug and it sighed and slumped further along the boulder pressing its face into rock.

Welp, its about time to headed back to Johns. He'll be worrying about him if he stays out too long, and theres no point in trying to communicate with it any further. Dave pokes to creature in its back and waves a little before heading off, with hope he understood his intend to return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I saw a typo and then lost it so sorry if there's one or two in there that I didn't fix ehehe
> 
> Follow me on mayohem.tumblr.com
> 
> Also thanks again to imaizumiofficial.tumblr.com for helping me edit!


	3. authors note

Alright so I've been superrr busy recently and I will probably continue to be for a few more weeks, so updates are gonna be slow. Sorry

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man I haven't written a fic in like 2 years, but I have big plans for this!
> 
> Special thanks to http://imaizumiofficial.tumblr.com for his input on world building and http://mallowkin.tumblr.com for helping me edit!
> 
> Follow me on mayohem.tumblr.com!!
> 
> Further chapters will be uploaded shortly!


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